Interview
Release Date:
July 13, 2007
Limited release
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 166/214 |
Max Braden |
Very stage play. An interesting twist at the end doesn't quite make up for the creepy incest vibe. |
Steve Buscemi plays world weary war correspondent Pierre Peders, who through an unfortunate professional transgression is demoted to the pop culture beat. He’s forced to interview America’s most famous soap opera star. They conduct a brief, perfunctory interview at a restaurant and then part only to be involved in an accident when her Hollywood perfect smile distracts his cabbie.
To avoid the looming paparazzi, she whisks him to her apartment. There they are forced to interact as two people with insecurities, emotional defenses and vulnerabilities on display.
They begin to relate and discover an attraction for one another. But is it genuine? Is his gruff, aloof nature, which because she comes from an environment that finds those not attracted to them ultimately curious, really his true identify? Once he shows the slightest hint of reciprocating the attraction, she waits to ensure his arousal and then withdraws. But is this kittenish persona her reality as well?
Sienna Miller plays Katya, the seemingly vapid soap opera star, and reportedly holds her own opposite Buscemi in a script that features confrontational dialogue and confessional monologues as the characters alternately attempt to best one another but also take solace from the other in displays of barren vulnerability while they attempt to determine the sexual tension they both think they feel is real.
This intricate, personal, emotional combat is the central story in Interview, which both is directed by and stars Buscemi. Set primarily in the soap opera actress’s spacious apartment, Buscemi apparently utilized just a few cameras and yet cleverly uses the space and action to avoid a static and uninteresting visual presentation.
It is a remake of Theo Van Gogh’s 2003 movie of the same name. The caustic and acerbic Van Gogh, who was the great-great grand nephew of the Dutch art master, Vincent Van Gogh, had planned to make an English speaking version of his film before he was tragically assassinated by Islamic extremists for his outspoken criticisms of Islamic Fundamentalism in his native Netherlands. (D. James Ruccio/BOP)
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